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Will Content Like Master KotFE/KotET Chapters Work With Ability Changes? Ops? MM FPs?


arunav

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I haven't finished KotET in Master Mode yet, but finally did all the KotFE chapters when I was bored last year and stuck at home a lot due to the pandemic.

 

This is solo PVE content that most definitely utilizes what some are calling "useless" abilities. Typically, these abilities are instead used in harder group PVE content or in PVP (both regs and ranked).

 

While some chapters were easier than others, the more difficult ones tended to need all your abilities.

 

This also is true of Operations and, to a lesser extent, Master Mode FPs and Uprisings. While SM Ops have been made much easier, Veteran and Master Mode Ops still require the use of passive and active abilities that might be removed or made an either/or option.

 

How will more difficult PVE content accommodate the loss of some abilities, passives and the like?

 

For 6.0, it seemed like there weren't enough resources to even scale up the existing game to level 75, with only the Duxn Op and 6.x FPs actually being level 75 content.

 

If 7.0 is overhauling classes and simplifying combat, how will more difficult content be revised to work with it? After all, this content was designed and balanced around the class specs as they are currently on live, for the most part.

 

From an outsider's perspective, it seems like this would be a lot more work than just scaling up boss encounters 5 levels (as was done for some past expansions before 6.0).

 

I am leaving out PVP on purpose, since it was noted in the expansion announcements that PVP would undergo some changes for 7.x.

Edited by arunav
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Pointing towards my notes on the LotS livestream announcement:

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=995231

 

  • As the game is now it is a complex thing to keep different end game content leveled at different places (downscaling to 70… content at 75…)
  • we want to have as much content relevant as possible especially group content
  • going to adjust how they do content leveling going forward especially for end game players
  • Intent to keep most group content relative to you at max level (80)

 

So while we don't have definitive answers for how they are going to address your concerns of balancing both new content and older content as you've mentioned (solo master chapters), I do have the suspicion that they are already addressing this very thing.

Edited by FumblesPhD
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I alluded to some of the concerns of OP in this post:

The developers need to consider the impact on PvE encounters while combining or eliminating abilities. Most importantly, they need to redesign the abilities and fight mechanics of mobs and bosses to ensure that the balance between mobs and player characters does not change...

 

If you eliminate some offensive abilities, you need to reduce the cooldowns on remaining offensive abilities; otherwise, there will be time windows in a fight where the player character will have to stand around doing nothing.

 

The changes need to be such that the health and damage output of the bosses match up with the healing output of the healers and the DTPS ability of the tanks while ensuring that the DPS checks can be met.

 

I checked on Onderon and in Sov FP; they don't seem to have made any such changes.

...

Edited by mike_carton
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I'd be less worried about raw damage/health pool figures than about timers.

 

One of the major PvE mechanics is pass/fail DCD use to survive damage spikes. Both tend to work on cooldowns, though in some cases you do have other triggers (health percentage, etc). If there's a balance in DCDs vs boss spike damage CDs, and you suddenly lose a bunch of DCDs, there's likely to be a problem with spike damage coming in when there are no DCDs available to help survive it.

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I haven't finished KotET in Master Mode yet, but finally did all the KotFE chapters when I was bored last year and stuck at home a lot due to the pandemic.

 

This is solo PVE content that most definitely utilizes what some are calling "useless" abilities. Typically, these abilities are instead used in harder group PVE content or in PVP (both regs and ranked).

 

While some chapters were easier than others, the more difficult ones tended to need all your abilities.

 

This also is true of Operations and, to a lesser extent, Master Mode FPs and Uprisings. While SM Ops have been made much easier, Veteran and Master Mode Ops still require the use of passive and active abilities that might be removed or made an either/or option.

 

How will more difficult PVE content accommodate the loss of some abilities, passives and the like?

 

For 6.0, it seemed like there weren't enough resources to even scale up the existing game to level 75, with only the Duxn Op and 6.x FPs actually being level 75 content.

 

If 7.0 is overhauling classes and simplifying combat, how will more difficult content be revised to work with it? After all, this content was designed and balanced around the class specs as they are currently on live, for the most part.

 

From an outsider's perspective, it seems like this would be a lot more work than just scaling up boss encounters 5 levels (as was done for some past expansions before 6.0).

 

I am leaving out PVP on purpose, since it was noted in the expansion announcements that PVP would undergo some changes for 7.x.

 

In a word... no.

 

I have zero faith they will bring it down enough to be doable.

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I can see the chapter content not working correctly for some fights. MM Chapters definitely aren't popular.

 

I'm more concerned about MM FPs and Vet/MM Operations. I'd be surprised if Operations weren't balanced out properly, at least within a few months of 7.0 being released. MM FPs, however, also aren't that popular, and there are dozens of them. Some bosses are sure to have problems.

 

Also, with so many changes being made, this expansion may have more bugs than typical. It's unclear when BW might have the time to fix content, and what will get prioritized.

 

In short, this aspect of the changes concerns me as much as changing combat very significantly in the first place.

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I can see the chapter content not working correctly for some fights. MM Chapters definitely aren't popular.

 

I'm more concerned about MM FPs and Vet/MM Operations. I'd be surprised if Operations weren't balanced out properly, at least within a few months of 7.0 being released. MM FPs, however, also aren't that popular, and there are dozens of them. Some bosses are sure to have problems.

 

Also, with so many changes being made, this expansion may have more bugs than typical. It's unclear when BW might have the time to fix content, and what will get prioritized.

 

In short, this aspect of the changes concerns me as much as changing combat very significantly in the first place.

Who cares about all that jazz? Old content? Pah, just do the latest story bit we release buy some cartel market and peace off, player retention? Who cares, revolving door mmo baby.

 

Remember that if no one does the content they can justify removing it, like they already did with the old nim ops.

They didnt have the manpower to rebalance them for new player levels but have the manpower to rebalance the whole game for a gameplay change no one asked for?

They are still playing around with templates for the other classes and the release is 6 months away? So how are they adjusting everything if they don't even know exactly what abilities players are gonna have available.

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Who cares about all that jazz? Old content? Pah, just do the latest story bit we release buy some cartel market and peace off, player retention? Who cares, revolving door mmo baby.

 

Remember that if no one does the content they can justify removing it, like they already did with the old nim ops.

They didnt have the manpower to rebalance them for new player levels but have the manpower to rebalance the whole game for a gameplay change no one asked for?

They are still playing around with templates for the other classes and the release is 6 months away? So how are they adjusting everything if they don't even know exactly what abilities players are gonna have available.

 

This.

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Short answer: no, they just don't have enough people to properly balance all old content. Most likely they'll just keep lowering the boss damage/health until people can get through the old FP/OPs.

 

It would be great if they could properly rebalance, but we have spent all of 6.0 with capped and uncapped endgame content. If they couldn't make all old content max level, then I really doubt they can adjust for changed abilities/gameplay in 7.0

 

Another reason for my lack of optism is the MM Copero fp they just finished 'fixing'. ... it's not fixed. All other MM fp the dps/heals have 143K hitpoints, tanks have 160k. Copero? Everyone, tanks/heals/dps have 131k.

 

Bioware's plans for 7.0 of changing gameplay and adjusting old PVE content seem way overambitious to me.

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I’m sure the KOTFE/KOTET chapters will be doable, but still challenging as usual. We don’t know the extent of the changes yet or new abilities either though, so we’ll see. Same for ops and mmfps. Many were around before we had some of these new abilities anyway. We may just not be able to cakewalk them like now, especially if they scale them all to 80. If you’re concerned with KOTET, try finishing the master mode before the changes, if you can. I did it early on, but have been redoing it as a hatred sin for a challenge.
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